Cutting Corners
by Ursa's number one fan
Summary: It is the eve before the comet that will signal Ozai's rise to unstoppable power as complete. The avatar is desparate for a way to stop this from happening. One Shot


Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The last airbender.

The comet was going to come soon. The comet he had dreamt of. Aang had been told by Avatar Roku that he must bring peace to the world before the comet came, or the Fire Nation Lord would be invincible.

He knew he didn't have much time left. He had just finished mastering water bending. He realized that while what remaining time he had left was passing quickly, he was only half done.

While meditating by the fire, on the eve of the day the comet was going to strike, Aang felt a soft tap on his shoulder.

An old grey-skinned, white-haired man stood over Aang. He was dressed in long blue robes, which were folded in a way Aang had never seen before.

"Who are you?" Aang asked, scrambling to his feet.

"Who am I?" the old man repeated thoughtfully. "It's not often I am asked that question, especially by an Avatar."

The young Avatar raised an eyebrow. "How did you know I'm the Avatar. Where are you from? You don't look like a member of the earth kingdoms."

"Right," the old man smiled. "I'm not from any earth kingdom. Nor the fire nation, nor the water tribes."

"Say," Aang asked. "You're not an Airbender are you?"

The old man chuckled whole-heartedly. "I like you kid, you're funny. Anyway, I heard there's a comet coming soon, if you get my drift."

"Yeah," Aang sighed. "They say it'll be here tomorrow, or the next day."

"Well," the old man said with a serious look in his eye. "What exactly are you planning on doing?"

Aang sat down on his cushion. "There's not much I can do. I'm out of time."

"That's not the spirit of the Avatar," the old man said with a stern kindness to his voice. "You can't just give up because you think the end is too near."

"But," Aang said, feeling helpless. "I'm not powerful enough yet, I haven't had the time to do everything I need to."

The old man smiled, with a gleam of kindness in his eyes. "You don't have to be powerful as long as you have friends who can help you. A stick on its own is weak, but three or more sticks together in a bundle are strong."

Aang cheered up. "That's right. I forgot; I have so many good friends! They've helped me along so far, I'm sure they'll help me now!"

"Yes," the old man agreed. "You may even find some new allies as the end draws near."

"Yeah," Aang said happily thinking of making new friends. "I can use all the help I can get. I should go now."

"Goodbye child," the old man said smiling. "Godspeed."

The Avatar had given consent, the man smiled thinking. That could be checked off of his "to do" list. Now he had his men needed to do their work. This world was a funny one. The leader of it changed, so every time they wanted to offer their services, they had to convince another person.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"What in the world?" Jet exclaimed, as he rubbed his head. He started to pick himself up off of the odd metallic ground. Wait a second, this wasn't very good, he realized as he saw far too many fire benders.

A voice behind him groaned. Holy cow, Jet's stomach spun as he realized he was looking at the Fire Nation Lord.

Jet's eyes darted all around, looking for a way out, for the familiar forest that he had always used when battling the Fire Nation. Much to his distress he was in a shiny metal room. He frowned; it looked nothing like iron or the crude steel the fire nation used for their ships.

"Boss," a short young man with a helmet a few sizes too big approached Jet. "What's going on?"

"Duke!" Jet exclaimed, happy to see that he wasn't the only Freedom Fighter. "I don't know. Do you remember being captured or anything?"

"We're not bound," the kid pointed out. "So I doubt we were captured. But we are surrounded by Fire Nation officers and such. They are waking up… We should get out of here."

"Wait a second," Jet whispered as he began to formulate a plan for how to escape. They weren't in a very large area, and he didn't want to draw attention to himself. "Where are my weapons?"

"I don't know," the Duke whispered back. "When I woke up my spear was gone. None of the Fire Nation soldiers seem to have their weapons either."

"Heh," Jet sneered. Only a child would believe the Fire Nation Soldiers were at anything other than an advantage. "You mean none of their metal weapons; they are still fire benders after all."

"Where am I?" Ozai demanded as he sat up, and held his head as if it hurt. "What's going on? I demand an update."

"Sire," a general said, addressing the lord. "We appear to be in a large metal box. We are unaware of how we got here, currently we're working on a determining the strength of our forces and account for who is here. We aren't alone either, there are others from other kingdoms."

"Good," Ozai said. "Get a squad together to investigate how we got here. I want the men responsible found and brought to me alive."

"Yes sir," the general said, bowing and leaving to complete his given task.

"I wonder," Ozai mused to himself. "Is this the Avatar's doing?"

The Fire Nation Lord didn't have enough time to get much musing done. A grey skinned old man, with high cheekbones and snow white hair appeared in the middle of the crowd.

"May I have your attention please," the old man announced in a firm voice. "May I have your attention please. I am informing you all that we will be arriving shortly at the planet which will be your new home."

"This is ridiculous!" Ozai spat loudly. "I, Ozai the Lord of the Fire Nation demand to be returned to my kingdom at once."

Most of the others from the same world as Ozai voiced agreement, despite some of them not being from the Fire Nation. There were a number of earth benders in the mix as well as a water bender.

Ozai stood up and glared defiantly at the grey-skinned man. The crowd was encouraged by his boldness and demanded in louder and louder voices to be returned home. But this mob mentality was nothing new to the old man, he had done this enough times to understand that it was just part of the coping phase humans need to go through to adjust.

One young fire bender, started trying to bend, to burn the old man to a crisp. But she quickly realized that her bending wasn't going to work. A man from the earth kingdom threw a shoe at the old man, only to watch him quickly dodge out of its path.

"Why can't we bend?" the young fire bender demanded. Among the plethora of questions, it wasn't very loud. But that one stood out to Ozai, he realized that it was futile to fight them now. He ordered the crowd to quiet down. The Fire Nation Lord started concocting a plan.

"You will not be taken back," the old man stated. "Your 'world' is one of illusion. You will arrive at your new home shortly. Prepare yourselves."

- - - - - - - - -

Ozai didn't want to be a refugee; he was the Lord of the Fire Nation. But he didn't have much of a choice; the odd shiny metal ship dumped him, and the others, in the middle of a new world.

He barked orders, gave direction to the other refugees. At least he was still a leader, which was his job. He had been born into ruling.

Unfortunately it didn't last long. They had been discovered before a week was up. The natives, they were different. They had strange magical contraptions that none of them had ever dreamt of.

Ozai didn't trust these new people. They were strangers. They had odd things. They had odd customs. They were strange. He didn't trust them one bit, and he cautioned others to be wary.

The members of the group from the other tribes felt torn. Frankly these new people, the people they assumed must be native to this new world, were very different from them. But then again, they did hate Ozai, as he did kill many of their people and was responsible for the war they had known their entire lives.

One day a man named Ako visited the camp. He wore red clothing. At first Ozai assumed it was just a ploy by the natives to get them to let their guard down. Then Ako did something amazing. He showed that he was able to fire bend.

The Fire Nation Lord, who was no longer the lord of much, was in shock. How could this be? Fire benders on this strange planet? Ako told them that this planet was the dumping ground for the other planets. That the grey-skinned old men often collected up the "bad apples" from the other planets and took them here. He claimed that there were earth benders, water benders, more fire benders, and there had even been a few air benders there.

Ozai was interested. His curiosity got the best of his fear of outsiders. He met with Ako and other "natives" – although he realized that even the "natives" were not native to this planet, but in fact transplants much like himself. Over the course of a couple weeks he learned things that made him feel as though his entire reality had turned upside down. Like white was black and right was left.

It turns out, the nearest these older refugees could figure, the worlds were artificially maintained. Perhaps that was why belief in deity(or deities) was such a common phenomena. These grey-skinned men, acted as catalysts, they allowed for the appearance of a higher power guiding the planets.

- - - - - - - - -

"You know," Aang reflected. "It's kind of funny. The Fire Nation has been tamed, but Earth kingdom tribes are still going at it. I don't think there will ever be peace."

"About the Fire Nation, I don't get it," Sokka grumbled. "Why is it suddenly all too easy?"

"The Fire Nation Lord disappeared," Aang explained quietly. "As well as most of his strong generals. I don't understand it either."

"Well," Katara suggested smiling. "Maybe you have friends in a higher place?"


End file.
